Baptist Faith and Message Part 3

Scripture Controversies

2 Peter 1:1–3 NASB95

Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 NASB95

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

Recap Last week

The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

Throughout church History, I would say that other than the doctrine of the deity of Christ, that the doctrine of Scripture has been the one that has been attacked the most frequently.

Reformation Controversy

For example, during the time known as a the Reformation, some men started reading the Bible for themselves, and they came to understand that the Catholic Church and the Popes had attempted to keep the people in the dark so that they could tell them what they wanted to tell them.

But in God’s providence, A man name Johann Gutenburg invented this thing called the printing press.

And what Martin Luther did was his translated the Bible into the German language so that the common people could understand it.

“Thanks to the printing press and the timely power of his message, Luther became the world’s first best-selling author. Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German sold 5,000 copies in just two weeks. From 1518 to 1525, Luther’s writings accounted for a third of all books sold in Germany and his German Bible went through more than 430 editions.”

Because of this new access to read the Bible in their own language, people started to question the Catholic Church.

What happened in the protestant reformation to be brief, was a few people, I believe led by God, started to question the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

The RCC believed is three sources of infallible authority.

magisterium – the teaching authority of the Catholic Church formed of the Pope and Bishops of the Church

scripture – the Bible which is classed as the Word of God, including the teachings of Christ

apostolic tradition – the teachings of Christ that were revealed to the apostles and have been passed down as tradition

During the Reformation, a few men began to stand up against the Catholic Church.

Men like Theodore Beza, Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, and Martin Luther.

Luther is probably the most famous. Not MLK Jr

Martin Luther is actually credited with starting the reformation

He nailed 95 grievances that he had with the Catholic Church to the door.

In The 95 theses, Luther was mainly targeting the church for their selling of indulgences (paying people out of purgatory). But out of this, they began to challenge the notion that the tradition and especially The Pope was infallible.

The began to champion the phrase Sola Scriptura. “The term sola Scriptura simply means “by Scripture alone.”

This slogan declared the idea that only the Bible has the authority to bind the consciences of believers.

This reshaped and directed this doctrine that we have today.

We believe Scripture is our authority, so out of the Protestant Reformation, protestant churches began to form.

Hear the Word “protest” in that. They went against the norm.

The Catholic Church tried to silence them, because ultimately they were about to take a hit financially.

The Pope had used his authority to exploit the people, so You can imagine how much they tried to silence the people who were trying to begin this reformation.

So the Protestant Reformation happened, the reason we have all the denominations today stems from this understanding of Sola Scriptura.

By Scripture Alone.

There were other issues as well.

There were Five solas of the reformation

Sola Fide- By Faith Alone

Sola Gratia- By grace Alone

Sola Christus- By Christ Alone

Sola Scriptura- By Scripture Alone

Soli Deo Gloria- For the glory of God alone.

Those issues formed the basis for their movement.

But you should know the main thing that drove this controversy was that the they wanted the church to be reformed back to Scripture. That’s where you get the term reformation.

The most famous quote coming out of the Reformation in my opinion is this one: “Unless I am convinced by Sacred Scripture or by evident reason, I will not recant. My conscience is held captive by the Word of God and to act against conscience is neither right nor safe.”

Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.

That wasn’t the only controversy.

Actually more recently, not in my life time but just before me in the 1980s

Battle for the Bible Controversy

In the 1980s, there was a controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Basically, what was happening during that time was the Bible and its teaching was being attacked by theological liberals.

They were teaching in our seminaries in the SBC and they were pumping out pastors that were liberal.

In the 1980’s, some of you may know this, conservative churches and pastors, like Adrian Rogers, David Miller, Paige Patterson, Al Mohler, Richard Land, and Kenneth Hemphill they led the charge in the SBC to bring about change.

One of the main good things that came out of that was that there was a cleaning house in the seminaries.

Many of the seminaries had turned liberal.

They were denying the inerrancy of Scripture. They were teaching that women were allowed to pastor churches, they were teaching that you could be a Christian and a practicing homosexual.

So what the seminaries were teaching began to trickle down to the churches as well.

So the seminaries got an overhaul.

Al Mohler got blasted for this statement.

“I would expect our faculty, certainly all those who are hired to this faculty, and I would expect in the classroom for students to understand that Jesus Christ is the only savior, to understand that abortion is a great, great moral evil, to understand that homosexuality is a sin, And, without apology, we are hoping that in the classroom, we are expecting that all those who are added to this faculty will uphold the position that the pastorate is a male office and though we support women in ministry we do not believe women should serve as pastors.”

He was blasted for that statement in a SBC seminary.

This is why it is so important for our seminaries to be held to a high standard.

I don’t know if you know this or not, but you are the authority over the seminaries in the SBC.

Ask people about Cooperative Program.

Explain the Cooperative Program.

You give to the church. the church then decides how much to give to the cooperative program.

The cooperative program is the combined money from all the SBC churches.

This is used to support the IMB, the NAMB, All the seminaries, and the ERLC.

So we give to that and then they take the money and distribute it to all these entities.

We do it this way as SB because we believe we can do more together than we can apart.

Here is the problem, At times, there can be a gap in what is going on at the entities and what we expect is happening.

Every person working for the entity is supposed to sign our confessional document, but in the 80s that wasn’t happening.

Churches were surprised to know what was being taught in the seminaries and they were finding out about it in the worst possible way. The pastor they would get would teach them unbiblical doctrine because thats what he heard in the seminary classroom.

Thankfully, people who believed the Bible once again stood up against the liberalism of that day.

Current Battle for the Bible

Sufficiency of Scripture

Right now within the SBC, there is a looming storm raging, and its over the ideas that are being pushed by our culture. Specifically in the area of Social Justice.

Some people believe that Christians are to work hand in hand with the those advocating for social justice.

Others believe that this idea of “social justice” is a worldly mindset of justice.

I’ve spoke about this before, but right now, it is the issue of race that is causing the uproar, but I believe it comes back to our understanding of Scripture.

In our culture right now, there is this belief that everything has to be framed around the issue of race and race relations.

So what you constantly see the ideas of race coming to the forefront in every area of life.

So many of the crimes that are committed are framed under the idea that the main force and reason behind the crime, is always related to race.

Right now, within the SBC, you should know there is a controversy over

Critical Race Theory- the view that the law and legal institutions are inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of colour. According to critical race theory (CRT), racial inequality emerges from the social, economic, and legal differences that white people create between “races” to maintain elite white interests in labour markets and politics, giving rise to poverty and criminality in many minority communities.

CRT- is the belief that our country and its laws are built upon racism. And White people are the one’s who have set this up for their own benefit.

Intersectionality- the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.

Let me put that in simple Ketchuptown terms.

Intersectionality- basically plays out like this- The more things that intersect, the more you are oppressed.

Read the intersectionality sheet.

There’s a lot of problems there.

And right Now whether to adopt those things as helpful tools is being argued right now within the Convention.

Now back to the point for tonight.

I reject those things because I believe the Bible is sufficient.

The Bible is sufficient to deal with these issues. We don’t need these worldly ideologies telling us how to handle things.

Here is my belief on these things.

With regard to race, racism of any kind is sin and needs to be repented over. And any crime committed against an individual because of their race is sin.

But not every crime is the result of race. Thats what our culture is pushing.

The Bible is clear on this.

Its time we got back to THE Bible when it comes to things like this.

We believe that all people are created in the image of God.

We believe God has a plan to save the nations. People from every tribe tongue and language.

Red Yellow Black and White, there are precious in his sight.

We are to love our neighbor regardless of color as ourselves.

and by the way the most important thing about us is not our color.

Listen to Galatians 3:26-29

Galatians 3:26–29 NASB95

For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

The point Paul is making is this

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) Chapter 3

The wall of separation between Jew and Gentile is removed for those united to Christ: all in Christ are Abraham’s seed (Eph. 2:14–16; Col. 3:11). Indeed, no human distinctions avail as advantages in the matter of salvation. Paul does not obliterate these distinctions, such as those between the sexes, but indicates that they give no preferential status in terms of our union with Christ and of our sharing in his saving benefits. Until Christ returns, the created order remains, and order in the church takes account of it

The culture right now desires that we divide over race. Christ has broke down those walls. We should see people by the most important disitinction.

They are either lost or saved.

My point in telling you this is that right now, we have this controversy in the SBC and the question really is:

Do we believe the Gospel is enough?

Do we believe the Bible is sufficient?

Going to the SBC this year.